Turkey Chili

The squirrels here have taken a noteworthy turn for the insane. One nearly ran into my leg this morning, nut in cheek. Oddly, I've noticed that Alex and I have begun to exhibit similarly frantic behavior. Saturday morning we left the house for a walk, and we accidentally returned with enough food for a 15-person dinner, plus leftovers to freeze for the winter. It's in the air.

The recipe for turkey chili is not a recipe. It's a method, learned by Alex from the source himself, which means you should let the recipe be more of a guidebook than an instruction manual. It's tradition to make it in the late fall, and it's hot enough to warm the soul as well as the body. It's perfect for both curling up with a bowl, and for serving with beer and guacamole to your favorite people, which makes it truly the most versatile and wonderful dish in our repertoire.

Ingredients (serves 10):
2 onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, diced
3 bell peppers, chopped
1/2 jalapeño pepper, seeds removed, chopped
1 large cans chopped tomatoes (the 29 oz. ones)
1 15 oz. can tomato puree
1 large cans black beans
1 large cans red kidney beans
1 large cans pinto beans
1 1/2 pounds ground turkey
1 tbsp chili powder
1/2 tbsp oregano
6 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
cheese and cilantro for garnish

Instructions:
Saute onions and garlic in 3 tbsp olive oil in a large pot for 5 minutes, then add the peppers. Meanwhile, saute turkey in 3 tbsp olive oil in a large pan. Add the turkey to the onion mix, then add the tomatoes, beans and seasoning. Simmer for about 30 minutes. Garnish and serve.

Homemade Drinking Chocolate

Just pretend this isn't weird: If reincarnation exists, I was Maya. Maybe Inca. And if my computer background (Chichen Itza) doesn't prove it, my passion for drinking chocolate absolutely does. Alex is practically South American Indian in this life, so he shares the love.

Drinking chocolate is like hot chocolate, but thicker, richer, and often spiced or flavored. Since tonight marked our first attempt to create it ourselves, we decided to go classic. We swirled bitter dark chocolate and sugar into steaming milk, and topped it with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. All together now: Sigh.

Ingredients:
2 cups milk
3 oz. bitter chocolate, chopped, plus a bit extra for shavings
1/3 cup sugar, or more to taste
whipped cream

Instructions:
Heat the milk on low heat over a stove. When it’s sufficiently hot, add the chopped chocolate, and stir it into the milk. Stir in the sugar, and remove from heat. Top with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

Mexican Lime Soup

Here is a recipe that's been in my family ever since Bon Appetit first published it in 1997. It's soup that people who don't cook soup can cook, and that people who don't like soup will like slash love.

This dish is healthy and fresh -- perfect for a cool night when you are looking for something to warm you, but not stuff you to oblivion. Besides, everyone loves toppings, and they absolutely make this meal.

We'd cooked it before, but we were still surprised at how easy it was. Really, all you do is heat chicken, pour chicken stock and lime juice over it, and let it cook. (Quick brag: We made homemade stock for the first time from the chicken we roasted two nights ago!) Also, if you prepare the toppings while waiting for the soup to cook, everything should be ready to serve in about 30 minutes.

Here is the recipe from Epicurious. We give it a guarantee, so if you try it and hate it, we owe you 3 beers.

Stuffed Eggplant

While preparing dinner tonight, we found out that a friend was accepted into medical school! We convinced her come over, and a boring eggplant dinner immediately became a celebratory feast -- complete with a bottle of wine and a simple spaghetti dish that we threw together in 10 minutes. We always feel guilty skimping on carbohydrates when there are guests to feed.

Stuffed vegetables generally mean heaps of cheese and breadcrumbs, but we thought we could do a healthier version with a fresher taste. My mom sometimes bakes eggplant innards with just cheese and tomato sauce, and we figured we'd add some peppers, onions and mushrooms too. Fueled by this idea and a kiss of guidance from recipes on the interwebs, we created our very own stuffed eggplant. For a pasta side, we simply mixed some cheese, mushrooms and peppers into the sauce and tossed it over spaghetti.

Ingredients:
2 eggplants
1 pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 cups mushrooms, chopped
1 cup tomato sauce
2 cups cheese (we used a part-skim mixture of mozzarella and asiago)
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper

Instructions:
Preheat the oven 350. Slice the eggplants in half, and scoop out the insides, leaving about 1/2 inch around the rim. Place the eggplant shells in the oven for 10 minutes. In the meantime, chop the remaining eggplant into small pieces. Cook the eggplant, peppers, mushrooms and onion in the oil for about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat, and mix the vegetables with the tomato sauce and almost all of the cheese. Scoop this mixture into the eggplant shells, and top with the remaining cheese. Bake the stuffed eggplants again for about 15 minutes.

Italian Cookies

Oh my god, we accidentally made over 100 cookies tonight. The recipe belongs our friend Dave's mom, who apparently makes cookies in batches of 100s. He fed them to us once, and they are AMAZING amazing. We've been begging for the recipe for weeks, and this morning I received the following email:

Hey Alanna, I've got my mom on the line, and she is running to the kitchen at top speed to get the recipe. It's hand-written on paper that's probably older than me (note the use of the word "oleo," before they knew to call it margarine). I'll type up the transcript best I can, then add some of my mother's finer secrets, as indicated by the asterisks.

The email goes on. The best part about these cookies is the texture, which is soft and melty, thanks to the ricotta. Second to the texture, however, is the fact that you decorate them with sprinkles. And did we mention that they taste amazing? Like warm vanilla sugar deliciousness.

We modified the recipe to make the cookies slightly healthier, and I'm posting our version here. Honestly, we couldn't tell the difference. So yeah, over 100 cookies, and they may be gone by tomorrow.

Ingredients (makes about 100 cookies):
cookies
1 stick butter, melted
1/4 lb. smart balance, melted
3 eggs
4 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
1 lb. fat-free ricotta cheese (except Dave's mom uses slightly more, so we did too)
icing
1/4 lb. smart balance
3 1/3 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp skim milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 350. Cream the butter and sugar together in a small bowl. Add the eggs, one at a time. In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients. Add the ricotta and vanilla, and mix everything together. Spoon the cookie dough onto baking sheets, making each cookie only about the size of a quarter and keeping at least an inch or two apart because they spread out. Bake for about 12 minutes, or until brown on the bottom (they will still be fairly white on top). To make the icing, add the melted smart balance to the powdered sugar and mix. Mix in the vanilla and milk. When the cookies are cool, ice them and top with sprinkles. Dave says extra points for bakers who decorate in the colors of the Italian flag.

Oven-Roasted Chicken

Chatting with my friend Danielle before class today, I mentioned that I planned to roast a chicken for dinner tonight. Her eyes widened: "But isn't that hard?," she asked.

Actually, nope. Roasting a chicken is cheaper and often easier than dealing with parts. We love this recipe; our moms (and yours) have been making it for years. Simple and classic, this is absolutely something to try for dinner this week. Just to note, though, if you haven't cooked a whole chicken before, be aware that extra parts are stored inside of the chicken. The first time I prepared one alone, I screamed and almost dropped the entire bird when I stuck my hand inside and found gizzards. Oops.

Ingredients:
4-5 lb. chicken
3 medium-sized onions, cut into chunky pieces
4 carrots, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
2 lbs. small red potatoes, quartered
2 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp thyme
3 tbsp rosemary
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 lemon
salt and pepper

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 375. Wash and pat dry the chicken. Remove its insides, if they are there. Place it in a roasting pan. In a bowl, combine the vegetables and pour the olive oil over them. Add half of the rosemary and thyme, and mix it over the vegetables. Rub the rest of the rosemary and time over the chicken and beneath its skin. Do the same with the garlic. Squeeze the juice of one lemon over it, and place the lemon itself in the cavity of the chicken. Sprinkle salt and pepper over the chicken, and then add the vegetables around the chicken in the roasting pan. Cook the chicken for about 2 hours, or until the juices run clear when you cut into it.

Vanilla and Chocolate Chip Muffins

Please don't shoot, but we don't really understand the cupcake craze. They're cute, yes, and there's the portion control factor, but we still don't think they merit the obsessive blogging and photographing and selling for $6 each, etc. Perusing the cookbook section of Penn's bookstore yesterday, we found like 5 books on cupcake decorating alone.

Muffins, however, are the underrated, modest back-up singers to the attention-mongering cupcake divas. Though they are frequently just as sweet and much tastier than cupcakes, they're not showing off about it. They're also healthier, and more versatile -- there's a whole galaxy of savory and fruity muffin-making that doesn't involve buttercream frosting or German chocolate anything (note: we are not opposed to buttercream or German chocolate generally, just in cupcake excess).

So I guess now would be a good time to disclose after making fun of all of the cupcake books at the bookstore yesterday, we purchased a muffin one. It's called Muffins Galore, and I love it. We decided to start with a simple recipe for chocolate chip muffins to bring for breakfast for our team members participating in Philadelphia's Race for Hope this morning, which raises money for the Brain Tumor Society. I've eaten two already today, and they are perfectly spongy with a great vanilla flavor. Completely simple and so yummers.


Ingredients (makes 12 muffins):
2 cups self-rising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup superfine sugar
1 cup milk or semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup milk (skim works)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 400. Line your muffin pan with paper muffin cups. Mix the flour and baking powder together in a large bowl, add the butter and rub it into the mixture. Stir in sugar and chocolate chips. In a separate bowl, combine the eggs, milk and vanilla, then pour this mixture over the dry one. Mix until combined, and spoon batter into the muffin cups. Bake for about 20 minutes, until well-risen and golden. Cool for about 10 minutes, and serve.

Pumpkin Pie Blintzes

The Blintz: It's not just the word I mistakenly use when talking about that thing in football where all the people run the same way at once, or something. No, the Blintz is the mothership of Jewish cooking. According to wikipedia, it comes from the Yiddish word "blintse," which comes from "blin," which comes from the Old Slavic word "mlin," meaning "to mill." We don't really understand the connection between milling and stuffing pancakes with ricotta, but we've learned not to question when cheese is involved.

As we recently discovered, however, this isn't 19th century Russia. Who knew, right? So instead of the classic Blintz recipe, we decided to try a modernized version of our own invention. We created a Pumpkin Pie-like filling for autumn using basically whatever we found in the cabinets. For the crepes, we used the Bittman recipe that we posted about earlier. Though we were super nervous, we were pretty pleased with the results -- not too sweet, so you could definitely do them for brunch as well, and warmly comforting and tasty. Obviously, we'll post the recipe for what we did, and I definitely recommend it, however there may be plenty of other ways to do this as well. We just kept throwing stuff in until it tasted good (hence, the measurements are liberal estimates), and you should do the same.

Ingredients (makes about 20 blintzes):
crepes
15 oz. canned pumpkin (1 can)
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
3 tbsp cinnamon, plus extra for topping
2 tbsp nutmeg
4 tbsp butter (half a stick), melted
powdered sugar, for topping

Instructions:
Make the crepes in advance, and set them aside (Note: Instead of regular sized-crepes, these should be about 6 inches in diameter). We recommend stacking them with paper towels in between so that they don't stick together. Preheat the oven 350. To make the filling, combine all of the other ingredients in a large bowl, and user a mixer on medium speed to whip them up until fluffy. Spoon about 2 tbsp of filling onto each crepe, and roll them up. Place them in a very lightly greased baking pan, and bake them for about 20 minutes. Sprinkle with cinnamon and powdered sugar, and serve warm.

Bloggers Meet-Up, and other excuses for Onion and Pepper Toasts with Blue Cheese

It happened -- the night we'd been anticipating for almost two whole weeks: Philly food bloggers united.

At 6:50 p.m., we packed up our toast points and pumpkin-pie blintzes, hailed a cab, and made the 10-block trek down Chestnut Street. We were extremely nervous; I quizzed Alex on the names of expected guests and their respective blogs during the ride, and we eavesdropped outside the apartment door for a long minute before knocking. Hearing only some chatter and laughing -- no screams or other indications of ax-murdering -- we entered into a warm apartment with a bunch of mostly twenty-somethings sitting around drinking wine and munching on homecookings. Despite the initial awkardness of introductions (so... what's your blog?), we quickly started loving it. And as we expected, the food tasted insanely fine. These were our kinds of peoples. Check out their sites by clicking the links from our blogroll, to your right.

Being two people, we brought two dishes: an appetizer and a dessert (will post next!). We'd made the appetizer once before, but it originated in Alex's family as a Christmas dish. It's very simple, but for some reason we just think it tastes really good. These are easy to make en masse, and great to set out at cocktail parties as well.

Ingredients:
3 onions, sliced into thin strips
2 peppers, sliced into thin strips
1 baguette
2 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp olive oil
4 oz. blue cheese
1 bunch of scallions, finely sliced
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 350. Slice the baguette into thin toasts, about 1/4 inch thick, and spread them out on a baking sheet. Toast them in the oven until they begin to brown, about 15 minutes. In a large pan, Cook the peppers and onions in the olive oil over medium heat, sprinkling them with the sugar and salt and pepper. Remove them from the heat after about 15 minutes, when onions have begun to brown and the peppers have softened. Scoop spoonfuls of the onion and pepper mixture onto the toasts, and top with a small piece of blue cheese (maybe about the size of a fingernail) and some pieces of scallion. If you want, you can throw the toasts back in the oven for a few minutes to melt the cheese, or just serve.

Lemon Cole Slaw with Chicken

We love this recipe, and we're amazed that it has gone this long without appearing on the blog. It involves no real cooking -- only chopping and mixing. The result is so addictive. You are supposed to let it sit for an hour before eating, but we kept grabbing forkfuls in the meantime. Additionally, throwing some chicken on top creates an extremely healthy, refreshing dinner salad. This is not a creamy coleslaw at all, it's very lemony and sweet and light.

The recipe is from Epicurious, and you can find it here. As for the chicken, we used Alex's roommate's new lean George Forman grill, which, hilariously, worked great. You could also just cook it in a pan with a bit of oil, salt, and pepper.